Checking out the forums this morning, I was a bit surprised to find some brand new pictures of a BlackBerry 10 L-Series Evalution unit just hanging out. The photos were posted up by forums member BBercat and show off the BlackBerry 10 device from a few different angles next to a Bold 9700. There's really nothing that we haven't seen before in the photos, but it's still great to get a fresh look at the device every now and then. With a global BlackBerry 10 event scheduled for the end of January, we thankfully don't have that much longer to wait to get our hands on one of these. Check out all the images in the gallery then hop into the forums for more discussion.

Yes. Seriously. Maybe you know something the rest of us don't. I choose to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism until I actually see the device I'm planning to get.

Look, we all know RIM is a great company. No need to be defensive about it. But so far all they have shown is that they finally caught up to the market. The real opportunity for RIM here is to take the PKB devices and reinvent them for the 21st century. I don't expect anything less from RIM.

I don't know anything more than you or any other person, and maybe you are right having doubts about RIM delivering, but there is nothing we can do besides thinking that they will do their job right... I mean, what is the point of RIM lying about devices? I believe they have more to lose than us... From that perspective, to me it doesn't make sense to expect the worst hoping for the best... Maybe because I am not really a fan, I am a supporter and customer, I love bb phones, have been my only phones for years and have a pb tablet, but it's up to them to produce their products and it's up to me to buy them...

All I want is for whatever they call it to be in nice silver letters at the top on the back of the device. I want people to know exactly what i'm holding when i'm talking on the phone and for them to be jealous. I especially want the people who moved to other devices too soon to say out loud "I should have waited!". There are no words to express how excited I am for this phone and Blackberry and all of us!

I'm super stoked to get this phone, but I'm not excited any more about it, meaning, we've seen SO MUCH of it, there's no surprise any more. Plus it's kind of boring.
Here's hoping RIM still has something to surprise us...

DUDE!! Think about it! It's a BRAND NEW OS! Not even an update or a re-release or whatever. This means that opening this phone up will be like opening a gift which in itself contains plenty more gifts inside!

I like that aside from what was pushed into the DEV Alpha Release OS, not much is known / has been seen in term of customizing the user experience on BB10. I also like that we haven'T really seen the photo and video editing apps yet (well, I haven't)

I think it's good to see the device exists, but also good that not everything is known on the software side.

Well you have to remember these are not the production phones. These are still the Dev Alpha phones. We don't know if these are the actual phones. I would imaging that they will holdout till the launch date to show of the actual phone.

Also I hope that we will get the chance to download the OS on the PlayBook first.

But we have seen devices that end up being final production wearing the evaluation sticker before. My personal opinion is that thorsten would know that at the front row of a lakers game he is being watched. He would not show a final device before launch knowing he was being watched, and also let his friend flash the device. Somethings going to change to the look of the back.

Of course being seen at the baseball game was on purpose. But I agree with the theory that these are not the final look/colour of the device. Thorsten said they were keeping things close to their chest. That could mean not just awesome surprises about software (launch titles/partnerships), but about the final hardware itself.

These devices are in carrier labs, you cannot get them approved in there and then make any significant changes that could potentially alter things like rf performance, so while we are seeing leaks labelled as evaluation units they will actually be almost exactly the same as the hardware that will be launched in january by this point.

I think that many rim fans only post here but they have allready an iphone 5 or samsung galaxy 3 or lumia 920. i love my bold 9900 but im a special rim fan. I wish to blackberry good luck but i start also to think that thhe train is gone...for me no problem they are on eby many bold 9990 if mine is brocken. :-)

No wonder the L-series looks huge compared to the Bold -- Versus IO says it has a 4.65" screen! If the final device they send to market is that big it might be too big for me to be particularly interested in. Looking forward to seeing a real one in February.

Interesting website, but WOW!, some of the 'reasons' for iPhone is totally inaccurate and a total lie. They "claim" BB has no email push notifications, no OTA sync or update, no navigation, etc. REALLY?

I don't know. RIM suprised us on the 9000 with a leather back. Perhaps another durable suprise would have been nice. The playbook back is nice to the touch. I think when used on something that goes in purses and pockets we will see a lot of chipping and peeling though. It was happening on playbooks around ports and those aren't thrown around like phones.

They've seen the same device. It's out there to show something great exists. I subscribe to the theory that this is NOT the production device (and in fact very few within RIM have actually seen the production device - just this one). Bla1ze has been clear that he hasn't signed any NDAs (Kevin too I think).

It does peel in some cases. One of my 2 PlayBooks has the rubber-like coating peeling off around the ports. Although nice to the touch, I don't believe it's the most durable coating for smartphones... and finger prints are harder to remove. I liked the brushed metal backing on the storm 9530, wouldn't mind seeing something like that again.

+1. As much as the storm was a flop, I personally believe the brushed metal back was very nice. The playbook style rubberized is nice to the touch but it chips at ports and a phone tossed in pockets, in purses, in cars, etc will surely take more abuse then a playbook.

man inside i was really hoping that rimm would be surprising everyone by coming out with the arista instead. big time wishful thinking. i really want to jump on bb10, but at the same time want to be a little patient and wait for the 'high end device' that is supposed to come out mid-year.

This is the same phone Thor had at the Lakers game. Does anyone really think Thor is gonna show the L series himself before January 30th? OF CoURSE NOT. What you see above and what we have been seeing iS exactly what Bla1ze called it in the article...BlackBerry10 L series EVALUATION UNIT. These Evaluation units are out there in quite a few hands. Its all going to tie into the marketing post Jan 30th. This is not the final hardware.

Someone mentioned that they were sure these were taken by a RIM employee. Maybe its all part of RIM's plan to keep the phone in everyones mind. I agree that this is not final hardware and is being leaked with a wink and a nod. Come Jan 30, BAM a totally sweet awesome design that no one has seen. Make you say SWEEEEET!

This London (if it is infact the London) is in many RIM employees' hands for bug testing purposes.

I doubt these pictures are being leaked by the company on purpose but rather it's by a few excited employees themselves. They're also getting weekly emails saying if they were to bring the phones outside of work there will be serious repercussion up to and including termination.

Do you guys remember that video on CrackBerry that got the guy fired? The one were it showed l series along with n series and talked about giving BlackBerry10 to a rock star, and then an artist, a corporate guy along with Joe the Plumber?
If you watch the engadget interview and read in between the lines, it sounds like this is exactly what they are doing. It's all part of the marketing plan. Evaluation devices are out there and people are gonna give testimonials about how BlackBerry10 is helping them in everyday life. Watch the engadget interview and pay attention when Frank Boulben name comes up.

I don't think you actually understand how things work with evaluation units, by this point where the phones have gone to carrier labs, pretty much all evaluation units in use will be basically identical to the final hardware that will be shipping.

I'm not a huge fan of the phone it self. Just about all phone's now a days are looking the same. Some have rounder corners, some are squarer, some are larger, some thinner but they pretty much all look the same.. I'd like to see something like the Blade concept being released. Now that would be a sweet sweet phone and you could have it as both a slider or full touch. For me, I'm saving my excitement for the OS, it's all about the OS! The phone itself is kind of boring..

I'm waiting impatiently and although I was thinking of sticking with the keyboard model I'm starting to waffle. That huge touch screen is looking better all the time. As Red green says, "I am a man and I can change if I have to I guess."

While i do hope this isn't final hardware and our friends at RIM have something up their sleeves, I wouldn't be at all disappointed if this phone dropped Jan. 30th. I like the understated and sleek look...I also like how it seems to have the pb rubberized backing which is awesome, and is just slightly thicker than say the iphone...seems very comfortable without being bulky like the lumia 920.

Personally I like the look of it if that is what it is going to look like. I think it looks sexy. Far better then the Iphone 5 or any other variant for that matter. I'm really not concerned with the final look and would actually be surprised if this isnt what it looks like

There was one video a while ago that showed the way you could go into different accounts in the hub, logically there would need to be a symbol for each view so the bb symbol might mean they were just showing bbm messages or if that stuck to the speech bubble symbol then the bb symbol would seem just as ideal for the view all setting on the hub too.

I know the rest are AMOLED, but really, I find the advantages of AMOLED (less battery usage on blacks and individually lit pixels) are not a worthy sacrifice VS the disadvantages (more battery use on certain colours which could use 3 times as much energy as LCD and the fact it absolutely SUCKS in sunlight).

I really hope they don't go AMOLED because my BlackBerry is useful in sunlight, but an AMOLED...

I wonder with RIM releasing BB10, does this mean that the BB7 devices will get 2 OS updates (BB8-BB9)??? Why the big skip in OS??? Hmmmm, Hopefully somebody on the CrackBerry squad can ask one of the big wigs at RIM.

Great question, I imagine that the java based OS will get another update. The reason for BB10 is because they want it to seem like a fresh start (which it is) and probably to allow the old OS another update or two. Keep in mind that they wanted to call it BBX but it was already registered.

The odds are that the gap was not left to allow for more updates but instead to indicate they are not connected and I would be quite surprised if we got any significant monolithic update to bb7.1 again.

At this point, the only significant updates to bb7 are going to be due to app updates such as that new version of bbm.

Guys, I don't think this is the real product. When you zoom in unto the product, thus the back cover, it says "property of research motion limited" "all rights reserved" "evaluation unit " "not for sale or lease"

I recently spent a couple of weeks trying out an iPhone. It left me with a real appreciation for my Bold 9700 . One issue was the slipperiness of the iPhone case. My 9700 case has rounded, rubberized edges, and a non-slip back panel. I can hold it with one hand without worrying that it will slide out. Any idea if the new series will be so ergonomically designed?

Love my 9900 and it works great, but I believe I will be trying this full touch out. Will love the extra screen real estate and the keyboard looks like it's going to be very good. And if the back is like the PlayBook then bonus..I like it as it's grippy and gives it a premium look and feel to it.

Someone's raised this before, but I think it's worth raising again. I wish whoever takes these pics would let us know which device they used so we know what *not* to buy. Seriously, this day of 8 MP cameras being standard on new phones and yet all these leaked photos look like they were taken on an original Moto Razr.

The L-series reminds me of the mysterious obelisk in "2001 -a Space Odyssey"; black, sleek and containing hidden secrets. I can't wait for them to be revealed. Other phones will seem like gaudy toys in comparison with the Blackberry's purposeful professionalism.

What a great idea for a set of commercials! Cue theme music, approaching obelisk from low angle and as light lands on its surface from the sunrise (or change in angle of viewer perspective) the beautiful amazing (better than retina) screen lights up and begins to fire through many of the features that should be highlighted in BB10. Maybe now it morphs into the phone being held in someone's hand as they do something with it like see the action symbol LED light up and an incoming message in the French Toast way of presenting it, so as the person changes the angle to read the message privately the camera pulls back and you see they are in a group.
Something like that

That's what I had in mind! But the screen lights up as a proto-human finger moves up it, probing and enquiring. Music swells and there is background chatter as the assembled onlookers learn the ability to communicate. Cut to the planet RIM, and a BBM message is received by a late 21st century human colony. The message is datestamped one million years earlier....

Someone here raised a valid point that if this was the final product, there should be a door for the removable battery, right? I can't see such a door in any of the leaked L-series so far, so I'm still going to assume that this is not the final product (but of course there's still the chance that the final product will look pretty much the same - I'm still hoping for some improvement in overall look of the final hardware though).

Read the other posts on this thread which explain why you will not actually see a battery door due to the whole back basically being the battery door.

As far as this being final hardware or not, they are in carrier labs already, companies are not allowed to submit one device and then make major changes to it without resubmitting it so this is going to be almost identical to the final hardware.

I hope this is not the final product. While it looks decent, it doesn't have that "wow" factor that would make it stand out in a sea of similar looking devices. It looks like RIM is spending all it's resources on software and not trying to push the envelope on hardware at all. I think they are underestimating how much that will hurt the success of their new BB10 lineup. The average person will not be intrigued enough when they see this device to consider this above the iPhone or the giant Android phones.

The wow factor has to come from the software these days since there are only so many ways to design a big slab of screen even if these leaks do seem to indicate they have made a nice looking slab of screen.

I agree, if I'm spending $550+ to buy outright and my data/voice plan is $60+ I'm wanting the phone to do everything I want it to do and then some. Mind you there are some devices that look lots better than others..as for all touch devices the design options are pretty limited as you say.

Want easy access to the voice mail and maybe in the phone log also show which person left a voice note........calling up the voice mail,waiting for the PW,then pressing 1 or 5 or 7 or 9 for the various options is a little too much.Hope RIM does something about it.Maybe its a little late but...still !

Agreed. No way he's using the actual model at a Lakers game courtside. Highly unlikely they're introducing the next mobile computing platform with no new tablet (or something else other than a phone to interface with). Notice how difficult it's becoming to find a PlayBook in the U.S.?? Because they're not planning on the current PlayBook being the "other" device.

Also, no way they think they'll recapture market share solely with peek/flow and a cool camera feature. There has to be more to it. There will be more to it. TH is very, very confident in the interviews. He's also pretty careful with his words.

Actually, anyone who thinks that current leaks will not be showing virtually final hardware are the ones that are clueless because you need to submit final hardware to carrier labs and are not able to make significant hardware changes after that point.

In my opinion, the top and bottom parts are ugly and useless, and I don't understand why they ever got considered in the first place. Alpha Developer looks much, much better. Having said that, I second the idea that this is not the final product and I believe that, coming January 30, we'll have a killer, well-rounded device that will knock the competition out in a heartbeat.

While I think this may be the size and shape of the phone to come - I don't think this is the finish of the phone to come. I remember Thor saying that the new phone would have a "new color not seen on a BB before" and the feeling was for a gun-metal type finish back then? This phone is black black and black and has been seen many times on a BB phone before. I have to believe the final materials will change and "jazz" up the phone a bit. People do judge a book by it's cover and that cover won't lure in folks I do not believe.

It does state "Evaluation Unit" I hope we get a suprise on release. This looks OK,. But i feel as though we need to expect more from RIM!! They have to make a very upfront statement on release that says, "were in it to win it""

They will all be "evaluation" units prior to full production. The evaluation units are essentially limited production runs. The ones seen here COULD be the Limited Edition units that are will be given to devs.

I just hope and pray with BB10 we don't get a sluggish OS that crashes and freezes as much as the current OS7 on my 9900. Also, since they are coming out with FaceFlow Video Chat, I'm guessing we shouldn't expect Skype. I didn't have my hopes up anyways but I'd really like to see more IM apps like yahoo messenger, OoVoO etc. I do hope for NetFlix as well as HBO GO and all those other apps that allow you to see media on the go. They always make them for sorry ass iCrap and nothing for BlackBerry PlayBook. Here's praying for you to prevail RIM.

RIM the money is in my bank account. Waiting to spend on your phones, cradles, cases, chargers, accessories. Please ensure I can get all of this on day one and not have to wait weeks to get my cradle,etc.

I agree with Blackcherry about the top and bottom bits making it look ugly. The first dev alpha looked the best and just like the playbook. It would have made a very nice match. I like the round edges but something needs to be done about those mat greyish bits which gives the phone a cheap look. Maybe they too need to be black with a shiny finish.

Totally disagree with you. The top and bottom bits are what make this phone look different from all the other touch screen phones out there.
Black with shinny finish? Gun metal color with a matt finish is what makes this phone to look alot better than other plasticky phones. I'm pretty sure this phone will look much better than what you see in photos.

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